Past debates over social movements have suffered from a focus on Anglo-America and Europe, often neglecting the significance of collective actions of citizens in the Global South. This authoritative new title redresses this imbalance with case study material from movements for change in Brazil, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. In these examples, social movements have formed without the benefits of the structural or institutional resource base found in the North, and have persevered even when the state does not have the resources to effectively respond to collective demands. Each expert contribution points to the complexity of relationships that influence mobilization and social movements; unsettling the notion that social activism leads inexorably to democracy and development and questioning what motivates collective action and what does it achieve?

Africa, it is often said, is suffering from a crisis of citizenship. At the heart of the contemporary debates this apparent crisis has provoked lie dynamic relations between the present and the past, between political theory and political practice, and between legal categories and lived experience. Yet studies of citizenship in Africa have often tended to foreshorten historical time and privilege the present at the expense of the deeper past. Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa provides a critical reflection on citizenship in Africa by bringing together scholars working with very different case studies and with very different understandings of what is meant by citizenship. By bringing historians and social scientists into dialogue within the same volume, it argues that a revised reading of the past can offer powerful new perspectives on the present, in ways that might also indicate new paths for the future. The project collects the works of up-and-coming and established scholars from around the globe. Presenting case studies from such wide-ranging countries as Sudan, Mauritius, South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ethiopia, the essays delve into the many facets of citizenship and agency as they have been expressed in the colonial and postcolonial eras. In so doing, they engage in exciting ways with the watershed book in the field, Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject. Contributors: Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, Frederick Cooper, Solomon M. Gofie, V. Adefemi Isumonah, Cherry Leonardi, John Lonsdale, Eghosa E.Osaghae, Ramola Ramtohul, Aidan Russell, Nicole Ulrich, Chris Vaughan, and Henri-Michel Yere.

Africa, it is often said, is suffering from a crisis of citizenship. At the heart of the contemporary debates this apparent crisis has provoked lie dynamic relations between the present and the past, between political theory and political practice, and between legal categories and lived experience. Yet studies of citizenship in Africa have often tended to foreshorten historical time and privilege the present at the expense of the deeper past. Citizenship, Belonging, and Political Community in Africa provides a critical reflection on citizenship in Africa by bringing together scholars working with very different case studies and with very different understandings of what is meant by citizenship. By bringing historians and social scientists into dialogue within the same volume, it argues that a revised reading of the past can offer powerful new perspectives on the present, in ways that might also indicate new paths for the future. The project collects the works of up-and-coming and established scholars from around the globe. Presenting case studies from such wide-ranging countries as Sudan, Mauritius, South Africa, Cote d'Ivoire, and Ethiopia, the essays delve into the many facets of citizenship and agency as they have been expressed in the colonial and postcolonial eras. In so doing, they engage in exciting ways with the watershed book in the field, Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject. Contributors: Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, Frederick Cooper, Solomon M. Gofie, V. Adefemi Isumonah, Cherry Leonardi, John Lonsdale, Eghosa E.Osaghae, Ramola Ramtohul, Aidan Russell, Nicole Ulrich, Chris Vaughan, and Henri-Michel Yere.

"Crippled Giant is an excellent summary of Nigerian political history.... The work is notable for even-handed analysis of both history and theory. The result is an introduction of the highest quality to the study of Nigerian politics." African Studies Review

"Osaghae, an academic with a refreshingly neutral and understated approach to the maddening follies of his government, has produced a highly readable overview of Nigeria's politics, economy, and foreign relations. Rich in detail, his account is also a useful tour of earlier thematic treatments of the subject." Foreign Affairs

..". well-written, coherent narrative and thoughtful, balanced analysis of Nigeria s political history from 1960 to 1996." A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, St. Antony s College, Oxford

Eghosa Osaghae s study leads him to the conclusion that Nigeria s problems are not of recent making but can be traced to structural impediments from colonial times."

Past debates over social movements have suffered from a focus on Anglo-America and Europe, often neglecting the significance of collective actions of citizens in the Global South. This authoritative new title redresses this imbalance with case study material from movements for change in Brazil, India, Bangladesh, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria. In these examples, social movements have formed without the benefits of the structural or institutional resource base found in the North, and have persevered even when the state does not have the resources to effectively respond to collective demands. Each expert contribution points to the complexity of relationships that influence mobilization and social movements; unsettling the notion that social activism leads inexorably to democracy and development and questioning what motivates collective action and what does it achieve?